


Oh, I Love You the Most, Always Giving Up the Ghost

by throughadoor



Category: Macdonald Hall - Gordon Korman
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 22:40:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5108225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughadoor/pseuds/throughadoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The events of the Macdonald Hall Class of 1990 10th Reunion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, I Love You the Most, Always Giving Up the Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted February 20, 2005. I was telling pru that i'm sort of enamored by the idea of putting Bruno and Boots in every slash story cliche ever. So I present to you the nobody knows they're gay together Macdonald Hall Class of 1990 tenth high school reunion story. Oh my. Wackiness ensues. Thanks so much to Amy for the beta.

The MacDonald Hall Class of 1990 ten year reunion was to be held on October 28, in conjunction with Founder's Day festivities, as was the custom.

Class of '90 reunion committee chair Mark Davies mailed save-the-date cards for the festivities in June, utilizing the database of the MacDonald Hall Alumni Association as the source of his mailing list and the supply closet of the Toronto Star-Gazette (his none-the-wise employer) for the mailing labels. 

A surprisingly significant number of the young alumni belonged to the Alumni Association, and many of those who weren't members were alerted by those who were. In the spirit of the intentions of John A. MacDonald, founder of the school for boys in 1896, the comraderie of boarding school education had been the glue that cemented many life-long friendships.

*

"What's up, asshole?"

"Bruno," Chris Talbot chastised, "somebody ought to put your mouth on dishwashing duty."

"Hah, hah," said Bruno. "So, you're coming to the reunion, right?"

"Aw, man, I don't know," Chris said. "I'd have to take two days off work--"

"Whatever, you're coming," said Bruno.

"Since when are you the on the reunion committee anyway?" Chris asked. "I thought Mark drew the short straw." Chris tactfully neglected to mention that Bruno had also been banned by the Fish from participation in any MacDonald Hall related committee ever again, for life. 

"Hey, I'm freelancing," Bruno said. "I told Mark I'd make some calls, make sure the gang's all there. So you'll be there, right?"

Chris sighed. "I'll see what I can do," he said, and then added, "Hey, Boots is coming, right?"

"Uh, I don't, um, I'm not sure," Bruno said, sputtering.

"Um, he's still your roommate, right?"

"Yeah, but jeez, I didn't keep his social calendar," Bruno said, and continued in the same breath, "Hey, listen, I gotta go, if I don't talk to you, I'll _see you at the reunion_."

Chris was an architect at a firm in suburban Alberta. Bruno's profession would never, ever stop being a source of constant amusement to everyone who knew him: he was a kindergarten teacher.

*

"Hi, Wilbur, it's Boots. Bruno's making me call you to make sure you're coming to the reunion."

"Reunion, hah," said Wilbur. "Bruno is making you do his dirty work and strong-arming us all into doing something we don't want to do. Are you sure we even left the Hall?"

"Yeah, right," said Boots. "So this is the part where you say you'll do it anyway?"

"I guess so," said Wilbur. "Hey, talk about having never left the Hall -- you are Bruno are still living together, right? How is Bruno?"

"He's good," said Boots, in a way that made his voice sound like a smile, even over the phone. "He's really good."

Wilbur had some kind of nonspecific office job where no one really understood what he did all day (including Wilbur) which would probably lead to middle management. Boots was a reference clerk at a public library.

*

"So I talked to Chris, Perry, Elmer and Sidney."

"And I talked to Wilbur and Pete."

"Are they coming?"

Boots shrugged. "They're not sure."

"Boots!"

"Bruno!" Boots replied. "You can't make people do things they don't want to do."

It sounded pretty hollow, though, considering that talking his friends into attending their high school reunion was rather low on the list of things Bruno had convinced people to do that they claimed to have no intention of doing.

Bruno, apparently deigning not to dignify this with a response, didn't say anything for a while and then finally, "I should go take a shower."

Boots snorted a laugh. "That's what you said an hour ago."

"I'm going to do it. I'm going to get up right now and go take a shower."

"No you aren't."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, for one thing, your hand is down my pants."

The bed was a mattress and box spring stacked on the ground, but the sheets were bright blue and made of that soft t-shirt material. They were curled up together in the center, pillows tossed on the floor and blankets twisted around their ankles. Bruno's hand was tucked inside Boots' boxer shorts, he'd been palming his way down Boots' stomach since Boots suggested that Bruno couldn't move mountains or change the color of the sky. 

"You got me there," Bruno said, and pulled Boots closer.

*

Theirs had been a somewhat fumbled road to domesticity.

After six years of rooming together at the Hall, they had promptly signed up be roommates in the residence hall at UBC, and it had been so much like being back in Dormitory 3 that Boots had spent the first semester half-expecting to discover that the thunderously snoring, pot smoking Neanderthal who roomed next to them to turn out to be Mr. Fudge after all.

When they'd been at the Hall, they'd been Bruno and Boots, full stop. At UBC, they had been Bruno and Boots and Bruno had been the straight roommate and Boots had been the gay one. Technically Boots had been the gay roommate since a disastrous attempt at making out with Cathy at a Scrimmages/MacDonald Hall dance in their eleventh year, but it was information that he had opted to keep to himself, or at least from everyone but Bruno, whose reaction in its entirety had been, "Duh." Full stop.

Being the gay/straight roommate duo had been their schtick, then, in as much as Bruno had needed anything more than the act of being Bruno for a schtick. It worked out pretty well for them, until they'd been living in their shabby apartment downtown for about three years.

Four nights in a row, Boots had found Bruno awake and sitting at the kitchen table at four in the morning, perfectly unmoving and hands folded in front of him like a white linen napkin. When Boots had demanded to know what was wrong, Bruno had said, "You should probably know that I think I'm in love with you," no hesitation whatsoever but he hadn't looked up, either.

Bruno had always had a certain talent for making it sound as though doing something was as easy as saying it. Sometimes -- through, if nothing else, sheer force of will -- he was right. This had not been one of those times. 

First there had been the shouting, in which Boots stated in no uncertain terms that if it was a joke, it wasn't funny, and it wasn't a joke, it was even _less_ funny, because, "You can't just _decide_ something like that, Bruno, it's not fair. You are not Elmer Drimsdale, I am not a Manchurian bush hamster. This is not an experiment. This is my life, this is who I am."

Bruno, for once, had offered no explanations, no arguments. He'd just sat there.

"Anyway," Boots had said, "just because I'm gay, what makes you think, what makes you--" he had opted to trail off there. 

After that, they hadn't talked for three days, and had avoided each other as much as the tiny apartment would allow. 

On the morning of the third day, Bruno had cornered Boots outside the apartment and had said, "Look, I'll move out, okay? I'll move out and I'll pay my share of the rent until you find someone to take my room. Just -- please don't hate me. Please."

"I don't hate you."

"But you aren't--"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Bruno, of course I'm in love with you."

Bruno's eyes had brightened behind the dark circles and after a week of walking around like a reanimated zombie corpse, he had briefly looked like himself again.

"That doesn't solve anything," Boots had said. "It _doesn't_." Boots hadn't been looking so hot either. He'd been seeing way too much of his ceiling at night and too little of Bruno's hunched shoulders and turned back as he ducked out of his room in the morning. Finally, Boots said, "Let's go inside. We can talk, or something."

The first time they slept together, it was sleeping in the euphemistic sense only, because it was two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon three weeks later.

Boots had told Bruno that fucking and getting fucked didn't need to be the be-all end-all of them being gay -- very, very gay -- together, but after some awkward fumbling and some not so awkward fumbling, they had done that, too, Bruno's hands shaking so hard as he tried to open the condom wrapper that Boots had snatched it away from him and had slid the condom down Bruno's dick himself.

When Bruno had finally pushed all the way in, he had stopped, and said, "Wow. I mean, I've done this before, but -- well, not this exactly, I've never done this before, but--"

Underneath him, Boots had squirmed. "Um, Bruno, do you mind? I'm kind of--" his breath hitched, and he shuddered. "I'm kind of--"

Bruno had pulled out, and then thrust back in again, lightly, like an experiment. "The thing is," he said, panting a little bit, "I've done this before. I've just never done it with someone I actually wanted to be this close to."

Five months later, they had been lying awake in bed on a Saturday morning and Bruno had said, "I want you to move in with me."

Boots had raised his eyebrows. "You do realize that we already live together, and that we've basically lived together since we were fourteen?"

Bruno had waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah," he'd said, gesturing around the room, "but I want you to _move in_ with me."

They'd slept in Boots' bed the night before and pretty much every night for the last five months. The logic behind the choice had been simple: Boots' mother had given him money to buy a new mattress at Christmas, and Bruno had still been sleeping on the lumpy one that they'd liberated from their dorm at UBC. Every morning, Bruno had climbed out of Boots' bed and wandered into his own bedroom for clean socks and pants and underwear. The sheets on his bed had probably been dusty, they'd been untouched for so long. 

"I want to move in with you," Bruno had repeated. "I want to cram all our clothes in one closet and crowd your crap for space on the dresser and turn the other bedroom into a study or something."

Boots had grinned, and fit his hand around the back of Bruno's head to that he could pull him in and kiss him. Afterward, he had said, "A study? What exactly do you plan on _studying_?"

Bruno had told him to shut up, and then done quite a few things that had made shutting up seem both effective and attractive. That afternoon they'd spent three hours moving a bunch of Bruno's crap into Boots' room and when they'd finished, they'd hardly been able to open the closet.

"It's kind of like living with Elmer again," Boots had said.

"Yeah, but we didn't share a bed when we lived with Elmer." Bruno had said.

Boots had laughed so hard he'd almost fallen off the bed. 

*

"What do you think it's going to be like?" Boots asked. He was sitting cross-legged at the head of the bed with his back against the wall. Bruno was on his back, dangling his head over the edge of the mattress, with his feet in Bruno's lap.

"I think it's going to be the Hall," said Bruno. "I don't know, maybe it'll look smaller, or something."

*

MacDonald Hall Class of '90 reunion committee chairman Mark Davies was thrilled with the expected turnout for the upcoming event. Nearly seventy-five alumni -- more than half of the graduating class -- had submitted reservations. Normally the alumni in attendance for Founder's Day weekend were housed in the guest cottages, but in the light of the overwhelming turn out, he had made arrangements to house alumni who would be attending without spouses in Dormitory 3, which was unoccupied that semester for a project of renovation and expansion.

*

"Bruno, I don't think this is a very good idea."

"That's what you always say."

"Yeah," said Boots, "and I always _mean_ it, too."

They were standing at the counter of a costume rental shop in downtown Toronto. Bruno hadn't sprung his plan on Boots until they had picked up their rental car at the Toronto airport, arguing that he already had the name and address of a place and that their pedestrian adventures in downtown Toronto when they'd been at the Hall ten years ago would be enough to get them there. Two and a half hours later, Boots was even less enthused, but Bruno remained undaunted.

"Come on," he said, "What's the Fish gonna do? Confine us to our room? Put us on dishwashing duty?"

"He might!" 

The shop clerk emerged from behind the curtain that separated the counter from the back room. "Most of our pieces are already checked out for the weekend," she said. "You know, birthday parties. Friday night, this is the best we can do."

She held up an ancient clown suit with patched elbows and orange and green polka dots the size of saucers. 

"That's great, that's perfect," Bruno said to her, whipping out his wallet. To Boots, he turned and said, "Melvin, this is _tradition_. I bet the Fish will be touched that we remembered."

As they exited the store, clown suit in tow, Boots said, "I think proximity to the Hall is making you crazier. By the time we get there, you'll have regressed back to the age of fourteen, and the Fish will re-enroll you just so he can --"

Bruno pressed his mouth against Boots', effectively cutting off Boots' babbling. Boots, fairly stunned that Bruno would be caught kissing him even in the anonymity of downtown Toronto, didn't even notice that Bruno had used their proximity to grab the rental car's keys out of Boots' pocket.

"I couldn't shut you up that easily when I was fourteen," said Bruno, grinning. He waved the keys in Boots face. "Get in, I'm driving."

Boots didn't ask what Bruno would do if he needed to shut Boots up once they got to the Hall.

*

It wasn't like it was a complete secret or that they hadn't told anyone.

Figuring out how to be Bruno's boyfriend after having been his best friend for almost ten years wasn't always easy. But Boots felt his major advantage was that he _knew_ Bruno, and really knowing Bruno wasn't easy. Even before they were whatever they were now, Boots had known him better than anyone, and known that Bruno was the type of guy who had countless acquaintances but very few close friends, who was boisterous but also rather private. 

So it wasn't like he was ashamed or hiding something. It would just never occur to Bruno to tell their friends from the Hall that they hardly ever saw or people they went to college with who they still met up with for drinks every once in a while or the other teachers at his school that the guy who was already his roommate and best friend since forever was now the guy who he took showers with and the guy who he kissed behind the ear while said guy was making scrambled eggs for dinner. 

Boots never told anyone first, and he told himself it was because it would amount to outing Bruno without his permission, but it was also entirely possible it was because, even after five years, Boots was still waiting for the other shoe, for Bruno to realize he wasn't gay, didn't love Boots like that and that he had made a huge mistake.

Of all the things Boots had loved about being at MacDonald Hall and as much as he was looking forward to going back, the feeling of being fourteen and knowing that what he felt for Bruno was indefinable and huge and utterly unreciprocated wasn't something Boots relished reliving. 

*

By the time they were turning off the highway, it was after ten o'clock, and they had missed registration, the Headmaster's weekend welcome and the alumni and trustee cocktail mixer, also known as the "party where we ply you with free booze and try to extort you for more money than your parents paid to send you here in the first place plus the cost of inflation."

Boots banged his head against the car seat head rest several times, trying to shake himself awake. He never did well with the time change (at home it was after one o'clock in the morning). "How are we supposed to get our rooms?" he asked Bruno.

Bruno shrugged. "We'll just go ask the Fish," he said. "I'm sure he'll know what's up." 

"It's after ten o'clock at night, I don't think he'll--" Boots trailed off. Bruno was already striding over to the Headmaster's cottage.

Bruno knocked briskly on the front door and Boots tried not to feel like he was cowering behind him. The man who answered the door was clad in pajamas and a red silk bathrobe, clearly irritated at having been disturbed at such a late hour, but Boots nearly did a double take -- it couldn't be the Fish, because this guy was really _old_.

"Walton, O'Neil," he said, "I must admit, my first instinct is to remind you two boys that it is after lights out. But I suppose that you are hardly boys any more."

Well, that answered that. It was the Fish alright.

"Sorry, sir," Boots said hastily.

"Yeah, sorry, sir," Bruno chimed in. "Hey, it's really great to see you. We got here a little late, we were wondering if you could tell us where we're staying."

"Is that Bruno Walton and Melvin O'Neil?" From behind Mr. Sturgeon's somewhat diminished but with age but still imposing frame was his wife, Mrs. Sturgeon. "Boys, come in, it's wonderful to see you!"

Bruno and Boots slipped through the door and awkwardly around Mr. Sturgeon to accept a hug from Mrs. Sturgeon. "Would you like a cup of tea?" she said. "You both look exhausted."

"Oh, no, thank you, ma'am," said Bruno. "We didn't mean to bother you so late, it's just that--"

"As I was just about to tell the, ah, young men, Mildred," interrupted Mr. Sturgeon, "you'll both be staying in Dormitory 3. Room 306, actually," he added, the ghost of his notorious fishy smile playing on his lips. "I believe you know the way?"

"Yes, sir, thank you sir," Bruno and Boots chorused, and made quickly toward the door.

"You'll have to come over for breakfast tomorrow," Mrs. Sturgeon called out. "Nine o'clock! No excuses!"

As Mr. Sturgeon moved to shut the door behind them, he paused. "Walton, O'Neil, it is, ah, good to see you. I'm glad you decided to attend. Good night."

*

"This is really kinky."

"Shut up, it's not."

"Sure it is," said Bruno. They'd let themselves into room 306 and automatically gravitated toward the side of the room they'd each favored when room 306 had been their home, and they were both sacked out on their respective former beds.

"It's completely kinky," Bruno said. "The very room where we spent so much time lusting and longing--"

"Um, excuse me," Boots cut in. "Who's this we?"

"What?" said Bruno, tucking his arms behind his head. "You're saying you didn't?"

Boots sat up on the edge of the opposite bed, hands on his kneecaps. "You're saying you _did_?"

"Of course," said Bruno, stretching out his arms and legs in an exaggerated way that Boots almost forgot he didn't have to pretend not to watch. Being back in this room was messing with his head. "I used to lie in this bed," Bruno continued, "and jerk off, and try not to think about you." He turned his head to look at Boots, staring him straight in the eye for the last part, and Boots felt a shiver run through his body like static electricity from his hair to the tips of his toes.

"I used to think about you," said Bruno, sprawling like he was naked on a feather bed and not still wearing his jeans and t-shirt and lying on a dorm-issue single mattress. "I used to think about you, and pretend I didn't, but do it anyway." His hand drifted casually toward his crotch, and he cupped himself through his jeans. "I used to do it when you were asleep," he said. "Were you always really asleep? Did you ever do it, too?" 

"I -- no," he said. "I mean, yes I was asleep, no I never did it, too." He was staring at the ceiling, cheeks burning.

"Hey," Bruno said softly, and then again, "hey," until Boots would turn his head to look at him. "Hey," Bruno said for the third time. "It's okay to look now."

And since he was Bruno, he could say something like that and have it not sound completely ridiculous and he could make it be true. And he could wink at Boots, and he could start unbuttoning his pants, and--

"Bruno, what are you--"

"Shh," Bruno said, always the ring master. Boots was starting to feel like he was in the lion's mouth. "You're pretending to be asleep," Bruno added. He wiggled his eyebrows at Boots, which was something Boots had watched him practice in the mirror -- _this_ mirror -- every night for six months. But he'd never watched this.

So Boots curled up on his side facing Bruno, and he didn't say anything. Bruno unzipped his jeans and shucked them down around his hips, practically business-like.

He rubbed his hand across his stomach, a path that Boots had traced enough times that he could almost feel it under his own palm: smooth skin, a light dusting of hair, the slight bump of the mole right at the edge of Bruno's pelvic bone. Bruno moved his hand lower, pushing the waistband of his shorts down, just enough so that his cock sprung out. It was already half-hard, and he wrapped his hand around it, making a low hiss through pursed lips.

Boots knew the feel of Bruno's cock, too, knew how it would feel right at this moment, right after the first couple pulls. It was weird to think of Bruno's cock having a personality, but then again Bruno had more personality in his left earlobe than most people had in their whole bodies, so maybe it wasn't. Bruno's cock was as excitable as the rest of him, and it gave a little jump whenever Boots curled his hand around it for the first time.

Boots snapped back to attention, and forced himself to watch the scene in front of him.

Bruno was lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, eyes half-lidded but still watching Boots, and he was furiously, industriously jerking off. Boots was apparently just catching up to the fact that he wasn't just watching Bruno wait for the bus or something, because he realized that he was incredibly hard. Feeling self-conscious, Boots pressed the heel of his hand against his crotch, neither unzipping or untucking. It felt good, though, and felt good to grind slightly against his own hand in unconscious time with Bruno's thrusts into his own hand.

Boots finally let himself look right into Bruno's eyes and wouldn't let himself look away. The knowing intensity of Bruno's gaze was swallowing him up, same as it always did, same as it always had. The hard part had been pretending that there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for Bruno, didn't want to do with Bruno. By comparison, _this_ was the easy part, easy to tell that Bruno's breath had gone ragged, easy to see how close he was in the shake of his shoulders, easy to let Bruno's deep grunt when he came be the thing that pushed Boots home.

*

Afterward, he lay on his back, eyes closed, a sticky mess but almost too exhausted to care. He tried to imagine what would have happened if he'd woken up in this bed to Bruno's panting when they were fourteen. When he felt his socks being tugged off his feet, he opened his eyes.

Bruno discarded Boots' socks on the floor, and moved to unbutton Boots' pants. "Hey, lift up," he said softly. Too sleepy to argue, Boots lifted his hips so that Bruno could slide off his pants. "You wanna change these?" Bruno asked, tugging on the hem of Boots' shorts.

Boots shook his head. "'M too tired," he said.

"Yeah," said Bruno. Boots felt a dip in the mattress and realized that  
Bruno was climbing up next to him.

"What're you doing?" he mumbled.

"Push over, huh?" Bruno said. Boots somehow found himself pressed against the wall, with Bruno plastered on his other side, an arm wrapped around Boots' middle, a leg tucked between Boots' knees. "The sleeping in two beds thing is a part I'd rather not relive," Bruno said, and before Boots could put the words together, Bruno was asleep.

*

"Come on, this is perfect."

"I just want to say, for the record, one more time, that I do not think this is a good idea. And when we're the first alumni to get trash collecting duty, I want you to remember that I warned you."

Bruno was holding a paper bag containing the rented clown suit in one hand, his other hand was poised to open the door to 306. "Don't worry so much," he said. "This is simple. This is, like, child's play. We have breakfast with the Fish, one of us gets up and says he has to use the can, we make the switch."

Boots frowned, as he finished tying his shoe laces. "Fine," he said. "but I'm not making the switch."

"Wow, that was an amazing breakfast, Mrs. Sturgeon," said Bruno an hour later. "May I use your rest room?"

"Of course," said Mrs. Sturgeon. "Just down the hall, second door on your right."

Bruno excused himself, leaving Boots to sweat bullets while Mrs. Sturgeon smiled and Mr. Sturgeon sipped his coffee impenetrably. 

"Thank you, Mrs. Sturgeon," Boots said fumblingly. "Every thing was great."

"Oh, it was no trouble at all," she said. "Do you boys do much cooking?"

"Uh, we try," said Boots, picking at his paper napkin. "Bruno loves pancakes, but his are usually a little, uh, more well done than yours." He smiled down at his plate at the memory of Bruno's attempt to surprise him with pancakes for breakfast on his birthday, which had ended with Boots munching on a stack of blackened hockey pucks and promising that they were excellent while Bruno laughed.

Mrs. Sturgeon chuckled. "It's the darnedest thing," she said. "You two boys still living together after all these years."

Boots gulped. "Well, you know," he said. "We're used to each other."

Neither of the Sturgeons said anything but they both looked at him in a way that made Boots grateful when he heard Bruno in the hallway.

"Hey, we should probably get going," said Bruno. "We wanted to take a walk around campus before the picnic. Thank you again for breakfast Mrs. Sturgeon."

Once they were outside, Boots asked, "Mission accomplished, then?"

Bruno grinned. "Mission accomplished." 

"Where'd you hide his suit?"

Bruno laughed. "Same place as always."

*

The buffet table set up for the picnic offered a choice of chicken salad, tuna salad and pasta salad. Boots surveyed the options, wishing for a roast beef sandwich to materialize. He opted for the chicken salad. 

"This food is for the birds, isn't it?" 

Boots looked up and grinned. "Hi, Wilbur," he said.

"Hey, man," Wilbur said, reaching across the buffet table to shake Boots' hand enthusiastically. "How are you?" He asked, as he began helping himself in turn, chicken _and_ pasta salad.

"I'm good," said Boots. "It's weird being back here, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess," said Wilbur, piling several seeded rolls on his plate. "Not much has changed, though, they're still skimping on the poppy seeds. Hey, where's Bruno?"

"He's over there," Boots said, nodding to where Bruno was gleefully holding Sidney's baby.

"Don't drop her," Sidney said with his hands clasped in front of him while his wife looked on, amused. 

"Hah," said Bruno. "That's rich, coming from you."

"Wow," said Boots to Wilbur. "Can you believe Sidney has a kid? That's crazy."

Wilbur shrugged. "Actually," he said, "we just found out that Emily's pregnant." He smiled in the direction of his wife, who was sitting under a tree on the lawn with her own salad combination plate, chatting with Mark and Mark's girlfriend.

"Wow, Wilbur, that's great!" said Boots with quickly mustered but hopefully not over compensatory enthusiasm. "Congratulations!" Biological improbability of either himself or Bruno getting pregnant aside, Boots found the idea of being a father at his age to be terrifying.

"Thanks," said Wilbur. "She's not due 'til March. It's still sinking in." He grinned. "Hey, man, when are you gonna settle down? You and Bruno can't stay roommates forever. What'll you do when one of you gets married?"

Boots shrugged and looked at his plate. The chicken salad was really dry. It was going to be a long afternoon.

*

"Yeah, there's a distance program where I could get my master's in library science and still keep my job," said Boots. He and Bruno were sitting on the front lawn, talking to Wilbur and Pete. "But I don't know, you know? Just because I like working at the library, I'm not sure I actually want to be a librarian."

"He's really good at it," said Bruno, and Boots felt a proud twist in his stomach. "I take my kids there once a week -- Boots does a really mean story hour."

Pete shook his head. "I cannot believe that you're a teacher," he said.

"It is," said Elmer, "extremely ironic, given your academic track record."

"C'mon," said Bruno. "Kindergarten. We're talking finger painting, nap time, snack time and kids who come up to your knee. It's completely right up my alley."

Wilbur and Pete both laughed and Boots was about to tell them that Bruno was actually amazing with his kids, and that all of his trademark energy and passion and mania were well-suited to engaging thirty five-year-olds every day, but he bit his tongue. He wasn't sure he trusted his ability to talk about Bruno in a yeah-he's-my-straight-roommate capacity.

"Man," said Pete. "Kindergarten teacher. Chicks must just, like, eat that up, right?"

Bruno coughed abruptly and Boots looked carefully down at the grass. "Yeah, you know," said Bruno lamely. "I've got so many five-year-olds wanting to marry me, I don't even know what to do with myself." Pete laughed. Boots plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between his thumb and finger, carefully saying and pointedly thinking nothing.

*

Later, as Boots was heading back to Dormitory 3 to change for the dinner, he ran into Mark outside of the faculty building. 

"Hey, Boots," said Mark, waving.

"Hey," Boots said, already feeling weary and worn out by a long afternoon of sin-of-omission small talk.

"I'm so glad you and Bruno made it," Mark said. "When you guys didn't show up at registration last night, I was worried you might have bailed."

"Yeah," said Boots. "We had a little, uh, unexpected detour." He wasn't sure if Mark was going to get quite the same kick out of practical joking the reunion now that he was the reunion committee chair.

Mark shook his head. "That Bruno," he said. "He really hasn't changed a bit, has he?"

Boots would have liked to tell Mark that, actually, Bruno had changed a lot, that he was still the same old damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead Bruno Walton who everyone remembered, but he'd grown up just like everyone else and he had a joint checking account and called if he was going to be home late and made Boots burnt inedible pancakes on his birthday and six months ago he'd come home with a stack of forms and said, "Look, we both know the insurance you get at the library is shit. Moira says that I get domestic partnership benefits -- we just have to fill this stuff out."

He wanted to tell Mark all that and also tell him that in all the important ways, no, Bruno hadn't changed a bit and that Boots loved him for it, but instead just shrugged and said, "Yeah, I guess not."

"Hey," said Mark. "What am I talking about? You know better than anyone. Anyway, I gotta get going. I'll see you tonight, huh?" He patted Boots on the shoulder and jogged off in the direction of the auditorium.

*

When Bruno came out of the bathroom buttoning his cuff links, Boots was lying on the bed, still wearing the jeans and t-shirt he'd worn to the picnic.

"Hey," said Bruno. "You gonna get dressed?"

"No. I'm not going."

Bruno paused in mid-reach for his tie. "Uh. What?" he said. "Are you feeling okay?"

Boots rolled over on his side so that he was facing the wall. "I'm fine," he said. "I just -- I don't really want to spend another four hours getting asked how come I'm still living with my high school roommate and why I don't have a girlfriend."

The mattress sank behind him and Boots felt Bruno's hand on his shoulder. "I," he started. "I, uh."

Boots wouldn't look at him. "Bruno," he said, "this isn't just about you. I mean, do you get that if I wasn't with you, that I'd still be like this? If I was dating Karl from the library, I would have brought him with me and I would have told everyone we went to Hall with that I was gay and he was my boyfriend."

"You want to date Karl? Karl's gay?" 

"That's not the point." Boots clenched his fists, because he was trying not to be angry at Bruno, but Bruno wasn't exactly making this any easier. 

"Um, what is the point?"

"The point is that I get that you don't want to tell people, because you're not really gay, and eventually you're going to figure that out and you're going to leave and that's fine, I mean. That's fine. But it's not easy for me, and I'm never going to meet a girl and get married and I hate pretending that I am to a bunch of people who used to be my friends." Boots let out a large huff of air at the end of this, apparently winded from blurting out everything he'd left unsaid for the last three years. 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You think I'm going to _what_?"

Boots finally rolled over. "You don't want to tell anyone because you're not really gay. I get that. It'd be weird if everyone thought you were, because we were, you know, whatever, and then when we weren't, you'd have to be like, well, you know, actually I'm--"

Bruno reached down to trace Boots' eyebrow with his finger. "You realize you're making absolutely no sense right now, right?"

Boots twisted away from Bruno's touch. "Stop it," he said. 

Bruno sighed. "Remember last fall when I went to that teachers' conference thing in Ottawa and I had dinner with Cathy?"

"Um, yeah?"

"I was in Ottawa, and I had dinner with Cathy. I told her, uh, I told her about us." Bruno didn't say anything for a moment and Boots stared at him while this information sunk in. "Do you know what she said when I told her?"

"What did she say?"

"She said, and I quote, 'Took you long enough.' She wasn't surprised or anything, she just said, 'Took you long enough.'"

One of the last times Boots saw Cathy was when she and Diane showed up wearing cut-off shorts with soft drink cups liberally spiked with vodka at their UBC graduation, having driven all night from Alberta. When she found out that Bruno and Boots were moving out of the dorms and into an apartment together in Davie, she'd swapped him upside the head and said, "God, you fucking moron." 

At the time, Boots had been both confused and glad that Bruno hadn't been around to hear her say that, although he hadn't known what one had to do with the other. Either way, it sounded exactly like Cathy, the story Bruno was telling, even if he didn't understand why Bruno was telling it. 

Bruno put his hand on Boots' cheek and this time Boots didn't move away. "If I haven't told the entire world, it's because I'm embarrassed and I'm sorry. And not for the reason you think I am, I'm embarrassed it took me so long to figure it out. You're this -- I love you. And I've known you since I was fourteen and I waited until I was twenty-five to get my act together. I'm embarrassed and I'm sorry, but not for the reason that you think. Which, for the record, is a stupid reason and not something that's going to happen, uh, ever. As far as I'm concerned."

Bruno's hand was warm on his face. Boots scooted closer and took Bruno's other hand in his. "That was a lot of talking you just did," he said.

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

"I didn't--"

"You did." He squeezed Bruno's hand for courage and said, "You shouldn't be embarrassed. I'm glad you said something. You weren't the only one who didn't say anything for a million years. I could have said something, too, you know. As your crazy schemes go, saying something was, like, the best one ever."

Bruno grinned, reaching his hand around to cup Boots' neck. "I'm glad to see you finally paying proper homage to my crazy schemes," he said. 

Boots leaned back against the mattress and laughed. "Don't let it go to your head," he said.

Bruno climbed fully onto the bed and used his arm to pull Boots into his orbit. "We can tell anyone you want," he said against Boots' ear. 

Boots shook his head. "We don't have to tell anyone, it's not important," he said, and realized it was true. 

"We could get married."

"I don't think it's legal, actually."

"Do you want to have a baby?"

"I don't think that's biologically possible."

"Do you want to adopt a baby?"

"Oh my god, no."

"Do you want to get dressed and go to the dinner?" Bruno said. 

Boots fingered one of Bruno's cuff links. "Yeah," he said, "I think I do."

*

They were late for the dinner, of course, and when they got to the gym, Bruno had his hand tucked in Boots' pants pocket. 

"Hey," Boots said, cupping Bruno's chin. "Hey." He held him in place and kissed him.

"Do that when we're inside and maybe I'll be impressed," Bruno said. "Come on, the Fish is probably waiting to bawl us out about his suit."

Dinner hadn't yet been served, but everyone was already seated at their tables. Mark was standing at the podium at the head of a room. "--especially want to thank my committee," he was saying, "the staff, Mr. and Mrs. Sturgeon. And, of course, all of you for coming. Together, you've made the MacDonald Hall Class of '90 tenth reunion the most well attended in recent memory. I can't wait to see everyone back for our twentieth."

He paused while everyone applauded. Bruno and Boots clapped as they ducked into seats at the table closest to the door. Chris was seated at the table along with two other guys they didn't recognize. Chris grinned at them.

"It's so great to be back," Mark said from the podium. "I mean, come on! Elmer Drimsdale is a nuclear physicist and he's probably going to cure cancer as a hobby. Calvin Fihzgart is a linebacker for the Denver Broncos. We're teachers and doctors and lawyers and husbands and fathers. The Class of '90 has a lot to be proud of." 

Mark paused for a moment and scanned the room. He found Bruno and Boots in the back of the room and grinned. "I'd also like to say," he said, "I'm especially proud that Bruno Walton and Boots O'Neil are here together tonight. And I'd like to say congratulations to them. Congratulations, guys!" Mark called out. 

All eyes turned to the back of the room, where Bruno was grinning broadly and Boots was smiling a weak smile. "Okay," said Mark, clapping his hands together. "Thank you very much. Everyone have a great evening." The crowd broke out into another round of applause. As they clapped, Bruno said out of the corner of his mouth, "Boots, how does everyone know?"

"I have no idea."

"Good evening, gentlemen."

Both of them turned around in their chairs to see Mr. Sturgeon, looking quite regal in his finest blue suit and red silk tie. 

"Mr. Sturgeon," Bruno croaked. "How are you, sir? That's a very sharp suit."

"Thank you, Walton," said Mr. Sturgeon, smoothing his tie. "It's quite interesting, I happened to be in the ladies restroom at the Faculty Building this afternoon and found it there. It appears to be a perfect fit."

Boots studied his plate very carefully so he wouldn't burst out laughing. 

"Really, sir," said Bruno lightly. "That's very lucky."

"Yes, indeed it is," said Mr. Sturgeon. He paused uncomfortably, and then added, "You two," he coughed. "You make a very fine couple."

Abruptly, he said, "Excuse me. Enjoy your meal."

They watched him walk back to the Head's table in disbelief.

"Wow," said Bruno.

"It is just me," said Boots, "or did we just get the Fish's blessing?"

"This is huge," said Bruno. 

At that same moment, servers began placing steaming dinner plates of roast beef and mashed potatoes in front of them, not a salad of any kind in sight. 

As they both dug in, Boots said, "I still don't get it, though. How did Mark know?"

"Actually, said Chris, raising his fork from across the table, "I might bear some responsibility for that one. I was telling Pete that you guys are obviously, you know, _together_ , but I didn't see him until it was too late."

"See who?"

"Myron Blankenship."

"The _Blabbermouth_?"

"It was an accident, I swear!" said Chris. "By the time it got to Mark, I think it was being babbled as less my opinion and more a statement of fact. You're not mad, are you?"

Boots looked at Bruno and saw the very Myron Blankenship in question over Bruno's shoulder, sitting two tables away. He grinned at Boots and flashed him a thumbs up sign. 

"No," said Bruno. "We're not mad." He bumped Boots' knee with his own under the table. "I couldn't have done it better if I'd decided to tell everyone, their second cousin and their ex-step brother myself."

*

The next morning, Bruno rolled over his bed, off of Boots and onto the floor.

"Ouch!" he said.

Boots sat up, rubbing his eyes. "You okay down there?" he asked.

"You know," said Bruno, rubbing the back of his head, "this trip down memory lane has been great and all, but I'm really looking forward to going back to sleep in a bed that was actually designed to hold two people."

"Speaking of, we should hurry up," said Boots. "Our flight leaves at noon."

"Melvin, you worry too much. We've got plenty of time." 

Bruno walked over to the other bed, scratching his back. He opened his suitcase. "What the _hell_?" he said.

Boots climbed out of the bed and walked over to stand behind him. When he saw what Bruno was staring at, he started to laugh. Bruno's suitcase was empty. Well, not entirely empty. The only thing in Bruno's suitcase was an orange and green polka dot clown suit. 


End file.
